Berlin Day 3

Despite another late night, we were up and out of the apartment before ten. Our plan was to travel by U Bahn to Potsdamer Platz to find the cluster of national art museums in the area. We were going to be done before six so we could get to the opera without rushing. Even before we set out, I knew that again we would run late and pass on eating rather than missing the Magic Flute.

Potsdamer Platz is a grassy plaza ringed by roads and tall modern buildings. To call Toronto a world class city is a joke if you are standing at an intersection soaking up the art in the architecture. The entire area consists of tall buildings, each one very modern, very beautiful and very different. One building, all glass, is like a flatiron building but with a very sharp, crisp profile instead of a rounded one. Across an alleyway, stands another building to complement the first one. It too has sharp angles, but instead of the walls coming to a point along the edge, there was a cluster of squared towers rising from the centre of the building. The one structure was in harmony with the other. The plaza formed was adorned with modern statues and the negative spaces on ground level invited window shopping, art gazing and coffee and/or a bite to eat. Across the street stood the Sony Centre. The buildings encircled a flagstone patio area and above was a beautiful iron and glass canopy. Breath taking does not even begin to describe the effect of the sections of the canopy viewed from the gaps between the structures.

We still hadn't found the galleries we had planned on visiting but every building we passed was a masterpiece with elegant gathering spaces. Nor were they new.  Most of them were 40 to 60 years old, but looked more modern than the buildings going up today in Toronto. Each building had the space to be able to appreciate its grandeur and adorned with statues, fountains and the like. Everything had been built with a master plan in mind so that there was harmony in viewing the streetscape. Later we learned that a beautiful yellow structure was the Berlin Philharmonic and the giant plaza pavied with slabs of concrete gently climbing upward was the Kultur Forum which houses three departments of the National Staatlliche Museum. We first visited the painting museum, a collection of art from the past 800 years. The works themselves were impressive, but the design of the space itself was also a work of art. The museum for prints and drawings was housed in the same building. All of Picasso's work was on display while the rest of the collection was closed. The final section of this "forum" is an art library.

But the piece de resistance was the museum's main building, designed by Mies Van Der Rohe for the Bacardi Company in Cuba. However, history in the persona of Fidel Castro intervened and the project was never begun. Years later, Van Der Rohe took the same design again, modified it only somewhat and was prepared to build it in Germany during the late 1950's. This project went bankrupt. When Berlin was ready for a modern art museum, the plans were resurrected once more and the project was completed in 1968. This building's approach is a steep set of stairs similar to the approach to an Aztec temple. The building itself is all glass supported by columns. Inside, instead of walls, there are panels arranged at angles. The light is phenomenal. The permanent collection is in two galleries on the lower level. Unfortunately, it was closed. The building is undergoing a massive renovation to ensure its integrity and to add amenities like elevators. There was, however, an interesting exhibit of four contemporary artists on the main floor. Exhausted, we visited the cafeteria for a well-timed snack and rest. When the complex closed we headed out to the Deutsche Opera.

Mozart's music is a delight with a playful quality to it. Once again the orchestra was impressive as were the voices of the leads and chorus. Without English surtitles, it was impossible to decipher the plot. I've made up my own story and when I have time, I will look it up to check on my comprehension. Of course there was no time for dinner, but the snack at the gallery along with pretzels bought outside the Opera was enough to keep us going. Both of us were too tired to detour home via Alexander Platz, but there was a small imbiss on the same street as the apartment that beckoned us. One more impossibly late diner dinner followed by collapse ended our third day. We have decided to sleep in on Sunday.